


Scraps

by sp201120122013



Series: mon coeur c'est dans la catacombes [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:04:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sp201120122013/pseuds/sp201120122013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean holds on to the little bit of Marco he has left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scraps

Jean had been taken from Marco once, pulled off of his bloody body, pulled out of a basement and into the ugly, hot sun.

Jean had been taken away from Marco twice, pulled out of a morgue, out of a pile of corpses as he screamed, tried to claw his way back to him through a sea of stiff bodies and dark, sunken eyes.

The first time, all that had been taken was Jean, out of where he trespassed, out of the arms of Marco.

The second time, Jean took a bundle away in his jacket when he was torn away from where he had misstepped.

The last time he'd seen Marco, he had taken as much off of his stiff, cold body as he could manage. Stripping off pieces of bloody shirt, ripping off a sleeve of his jacket, Jean had pulled a pocketknife out and stripped his pants off at the knees, cut off a thick leather strip from Marco's maneuver equipment. All these, Jean had managed to smuggle in his pockets, his own shirt, his underwear before he had been taken out of the morgue. In his hands when they had pulled him out, the last thing he had managed to cut, had been a thick hunk of Marco's blood-matted hair.

The glob of hair was stuffed deep in a sock of Jean's, one of the few things he was able to keep inside of his barrack. Stealing had increased lately, and people's limited possessions were becoming even more reduced as everyone snuck in, grabbed whatever they could to keep themselves lush before an inevitably quick and gory death. Food was the main culprit, but other things were being taken, too--jewelry, namely, to be pawned off and exchanged for cash, cash to be exchanged for prostitutes. Most of the boys Jean knew were starting to panic about dying virginal, dying in the mouth of a Titan without having ever touched a woman.

Jean and Marco had never cared for touching women, not when they had each other. In his narrow bunk, pressed against the wall in the space Marco used to sneak in and take up, Jean worked carefully with a needle and thread, taken on the premise of mending a tear in his own uniform. It was scraps of Marco's uniform between his fingers, though, the fabrics he had managed to take off of Marco's body. He had managed to stitch the sleeve together with the pants, neatly hemming them into a tight, uniform square. Marco had always hated when his uniform was in disorder, and Jean wouldn't allow the scraps to suffer the same fate.

Thumbing the bulge in the sock, the clump of Marco's hair Jean hadn't let slip from him since, Jean returned to sewing, sighing as he forced the needle through the far tougher leather. He didn't intend to sew the entire piece down flat, only attaching both ends to the square. It looked similar to a flag, one single sad tatter on the end of the leather. Jean figured he could wave it in defeat whenever the time arose, pull it out of his jacket pocket and fly it in the face of a Titan when they came for him--if they did, if they should ever understand it as a gesture of surrender. He wasn't sure if they were capable. 

Jean knew they were capable of devouring him, and he hoped that would be their next course of action. He inhaled sharply as the needle pricked his finger, cursing under his breath as he shook his injured hand. He only protested briefly, though, his stomach turning as he remembered what Marco had suffered. Jean's pain suddenly seemed far more muted, and he slowly lowered his hand back into his lap, continuing to sew by the dim light creeping into his corner of the barracks.

\-----

The days passed and the nights persisted, Jean touching a hand to his chest whenever he could while the sun was out to feel in either pocket the bulge of Marco's uniform, or in the opposite, the bulge of his sock. He knew he should leave them at home, should something ever happen to his coat, send his treasures flying away from him, but he couldn't. He couldn't have Marco away from him, not at all anymore. If he couldn't have him beside him anymore, he needed to keep Marco's memory as close as he could manage. As much as it ached to have Marco's scraps bouncing against his chest, he needed them there.

It hurt far less at night, when he could press his back hard against the cold, hard wall and pretend it was still the warmth of Marco's body. Pulling the fabric out of his pockets, he wrapped the leather strap tightly around his hand, clenching the fabric of Marco's uniform in his hand, tucking the sock under his head. Sometimes, he thought he could still smell Marco. The way Marco used to smell, not the reek of his corpse.

More and more, though, it was only the stench of Jean's sweaty palms and salty tears that clung to the fabrics originally belonging to Marco. With Marco's body, the rest of his clothes and possessions all thrown into the fire, passed on to other recruits, the scraps were all Jean had left of him. 

As each night passed and each day dragged on, Jean tried to fight the knowledge that he was being left with a little less of Marco with each hour that passed away.

He squeezed his scraps tighter with every minute he remained conscious, and wished for Marco to visit him more and more in any minute he found himself to be unconscious.

With each night, Marco faded a little more. The scraps in Jean's hand wore a little worse, and the memories in Jean's head grew a little dimmer.

All he could do was keep squeezing, as hard as he could, to the little that he had left.


End file.
